


Imaginary L'Oreal Boyfriend

by WhoNatural



Series: Howlnatural's Tumblr Fic [7]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fashion & Models, Former High School Crush, Humor, M/M, Misunderstandings, Model Derek, Oblivious Stiles, Ugly Duckling, cop stiles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-31
Updated: 2014-07-31
Packaged: 2018-02-11 04:24:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2053491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhoNatural/pseuds/WhoNatural
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Dude, Cora just threatened my dangly-bits. What the fuck?" he says, taking a long draught of his beer. "And she started talking about something I did in eleventh grade that I have no id-“</p><p>The words die on his lips as he looks across the room, and there, sitting on the edge of an armchair with a relaxed smile on his face, in a well-fitted henley and jeans, is Imaginary L’Oreal Boyfriend. Or, <i>Derek Hale.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Imaginary L'Oreal Boyfriend

**Author's Note:**

> Based on [ this gifset.](http://obrosey.com/post/74808167568)

_"That’s why I choose L’Oreal MenExpert. Because the only thing that should look vintage and worn… is my jacket."_

"Stiles. _Stiles._ " Scott throws a glance over his shoulder. "Is he kidding me with this? _Stiles!_ ”

The spoon drops into the milk with a clang, the front of his shirt pretty much ruined. So it’s either smelling like sour dairy for the night or wearing the only clean one he has left with the basketball-playing sheep. Stiles scowls. “What the fuck, Scott?”

"You weren’t listening!" Scott explains, and it almost sounds apologetic.  _Almost,_ if not for the vague hint of amusement dancing in his bro’s eyes.

"Nah," Isaac calls from the doorway, where he’s  _leaning._ Isaac  _leans_ , because he likes to pretend he’s too good for standing upright, or something. Which is bullshit, because Isaac isn’t too good for anything, and Stiles remembers that period in junior high when he straightened his hair. “He was just ogling Derek.”

"Don’t you have somewhere else to be unusually tall and not funny?" Stiles asks, holding the cotton away from his chest, but then he freezes, cocking his head. "Wait, who?"

Even Scott frowns back at that one. “Derek,” he says, like it’s obvious.

Stiles sets the bowl distractedly on the coffee table and mutes the TV. It doesn’t matter, his Imaginary L’Oreal Boyfriend’s commercial is only repeated once an hour, or so he’s noticed.

"Who’s Derek?" he asks with genuine confusion.

"The commercial guy," Isaac informs, gesturing at the screen like it’s obvious. "Doesn’t shave and looks like he just remembered something upsetting yet important all the time. Derek Hale?"

"As in…"

"As in brother of Cora Hale?"

"Boyd and Erica’s roommate?" Scott says, in a Stiles-you-know-this kind of way, which is rude, because he decidedly did  _not_ know any of this and there’s been a conspiracy to keep it from him. He gets a flash of gangly limbs and adorable bunny teeth and sexy-cute ears and the greenest eyes to ever green, but his brain is crashing quicker than Windows 98 running Encarta.

"C… _what?_ How long have you guys known who— Why didn’t..  _Cora_ never—”

"You and Cora hate each other," Isaac supplies, which is not strictly true.

"Excuse you, we do not hate each other."

"You told her she made your testicles want to go into witness protection."

Okay, _that’s_ true. Thank you, Scott, who remembers everything like a fucking elephant or something.

"That was a cop joke. And anyway, I’d classify it more as a witty repartee," he hedges. In truth, he has no idea why Cora is so confrontational with him all the time, just that her jibes are a lot more good-natured when directed at Scott, even though they all went to high school together, and he once glimpsed something which resembled the Eye of Sauron in her glare.

"Dude, we know that’s why you never go to Boyd’s without us anymore."

"It’s not because I’m afraid of Cora." (It’s because he’s afraid of Cora)

He stands, pulling off his shirt and tossing it back on the couch before moving to go get another one.

"Well, you’re gonna have to put on your big-boy panties because we were supposed to be there an hour ago," Isaac calls after him, looking at his wrist. He’s not even wearing a  _watch._

____

Because he has no sense of loyalty, Stiles concludes that Isaac spent the cab ride over to their friends’ apartment texting Cora about Stiles’ completely healthy crush on her older brother. And it _is_ completely healthy to be late for work twice because you were waiting to catch an record a men’s skincare commercial that doesn’t seem to have made it on to YouTube yet. It _is_. The conclusion that Cora knows is made when he barely gets a greeting out before she hauls him by his _Baa-sketball_ shirt away from the others.

"Don’t even think about it, Stiles," she hisses, and he’s starting to think that testicle comment was less of a joke.

"I.. think what? Who’s thinking anything?"

"I’ve had it up to here with shallow, gold-digging pricks deciding he’s good enough to date, now. " She folds her arms, and her eyes narrow into slits. "And after what you did in eleventh grade, it’s just because we have mutual friends that you still have working genitals. Stay away."

With that, she turns on her heel and stalks off into the party, a purposeful stomp to her gait. Stiles scrubs a hand over his face and moves inside, confused, disoriented, and rumpled.

Scott’s already got a drink waiting for him by the time he finds him in the living room. It’s crowded and hot already, and his regret at coming here multiplied by at least 20.

"Dude, Cora just threatened my dangly-bits. What the fuck?" he says, taking a long draught of his beer. "And she started talking about something I did in eleventh grade that I have _no_ id-“

The words die on his lips as he looks across the room, and there, sitting on the edge of an armchair with a relaxed smile on his face, in a well-fitted henley and jeans, is Imaginary L’Oreal Boyfriend. Or,  _Derek Hale._

“Oh my god,” he breathes, and great, he’s sighing like some heroine from a bodice-burster. Now he sees him in person, Stiles wonders how he never connected ILB to Derek sooner — same eyes; gorgeous, thick, dark hair. The teeth have had work done, but still have this adorable buckish quality. Ugh, he’s like everything he was in high school but ten times better.

Scott frowns, following his gaze, and his eyebrows rise. “Oh, I didn’t know he was gonna be here, dude, I swear. He must be crashing here for the weekend.”

“I’m wearing a shirt with a sheep on it,” Stiles muses with barely-contained horror. “The guy I’ve been jerking off thinking about for weeks is at the same party I am and I’m— Oh my god…” He turns into Scott’s space, giving Derek his back because the guy just looked across the room.

At Stiles.

“Oh,” Scott says, looking over Stiles shoulder, “Dude, I think he remembers you.”

 _What…?_ Stiles’ head rears back, scowling. “Remembers me how? I barely met the guy before tonight.”

Scott wrenches his gaze away from trying to look nonchalant to look at Stiles like he’s lost a few important faculties. “Dude, don’t you remember kind of harshly turning the guy down in high school?”

Spitting out the drink he was sipping, Stiles coughs. “What?”

Scott’s chewing cashews now, like everything’s dandy and not completely stressful. “That time he asked you to the party and you laughed really hard and punched him in the arm.” He sucks in a breath through his teeth. “That was kind of humiliating dude, dick move, even for you.”

Stiles is officially speechless. Suddenly, the image of Derek Hale he’d remembered at home has context: the lacrosse field, after a championship game. Stiles had warmed the bench, of course, but was no less excited about the win. And then Derek Hale was there; the gorgeous senior he still wasn’t sure he’d actually seen at the comic book store not four days previous, asking if he could talk to him.

“Buh—” Yeah, no words. “That was serious?!”

The look Scott throws at him is like he’s grown an extra head. “Dude, why wouldn’t he be serious?”

“I— but he was gorgeous! And cool!” Stiles flails, almost knocking over a lamp, and there’s a brief pause in the conversation when everyone in the room seems to stop to look. Stiles is too flummoxed to check if Derek is among the people giving curious stares, but he thinks he can feel his eyes on him.

The conversation has started up again when Scott wrinkles his nose and says, “if you say so, dude?”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Well, he was kinda scrawny and awkward and had those ears, you know? I wouldn’t have pegged him for a future model or anything.”

Stiles is offended on Derek’s behalf, seriously. “Yeah, what do you know?”

Actually, that’s unfair. Every girlfriend Scott’s had has been a knockout. Unlike Stiles, who turned down the chance to date Derek Hale through his own stupidity. He turns again to lean against the table as Scott meanders off to seek out Kira. Derek is laughing and leaning his forearms on his knees and being generally upsetting, and Stiles wants to stab himself in the face when he thinks about how he could have hit that, how he could _still_ be hitting that, if it wasn’t for the fact that he assumed that guys like Derek don’t associate with guys like Stiles.

Bowling for Soup’s High School Never Ends is an oddly appropriate soundtrack.

It might be the fact that he suspects Scott laced his beer with something harder from the liquor family, or the brain cells that looking at someone who is as attractive as Derek for more than a moment at a time kills, but he feels the overwhelming urge to fix it.

It’s not just for Derek to not think he’s an asshole anymore (although that’s a big part of it), it’s that nobody deserves to have a memory from their past they probably still cringe at when it doesn’t have to be that way.

It’s probably a sign or something that he has barely more than thought the thing, when Derek excuses himself to use the restroom.

It’s also completely healthy to wait outside a restroom for someone who you regret not dating in high school.

The sound of the door unlocking causes him to shoulder off the wall and paint on his best I’m-sorry-I-was-an-asshole grin, and Derek almost moonwalks back into the bathroom while he replaces the nervous surprise on his face with a suspicious glare.

“Stiles, right?” he says, and yep, that’s the voice from the commercial, and Stiles’ dick seems to have confused hearing that voice with Personal Stiles Time because there is definitely something happening there.

“Derek…. Hey,” he says, because he’s a master conversationalist. “I….”

No words, all words are gone. Not a single syllable in his brain. He doesn’t know if the panic is outwardly manifesting in his expression, but Derek is raising an eyebrow at him and how the fuck did Stiles ever forget that face? He wants to rub his face all over that face and he wants to punch himself in the dick if Derek doesn’t do it for him.

“Well. This was nice…” Derek starts sarcastically, shouldering past him in the narrow hallways smelling of cologne and leather and something Stiles wants to roll around with.

He’s sort of still graphically imagining it when he realises that Derek’s almost rounded the corner back to the party and he’s almost missed his chance.

"I thought it was a joke!" he blurts, feeling slight relief when Derek stops, but that means he has to keep talking and the words aren’t really making themselves known. "I, uh…. It might have been brought to my attention that the reason your sister acts like she wants to make shoes out of my skin is because I humiliated you in high school," he explains, and Derek turns. "I swear to god, dude, I thought you were kidding."

Derek has a single eyebrow raised and that act alone is giving Stiles one of his patented fear-boners. So, hot, intimidating people do it for him. It’s a legitimate kink, okay?

"I have no idea what you’re talking about," Derek says, and that— that’s sort of worse than being shot down for his apology. That’s acting like Stiles doesn’t register on his radar, and he feels it sting like he’s fifteen again trying to strike up a conversation with Lydia. (He’s pretty sure he can trace back the origins of his fear-boners to her, actually)

"Oh," Stiles responds intelligently, wanting to melt back into the wall, or something. "Oh, well I was just gonna say that that time you asked me to go to the party at the Whittemores’ as your date and I said ‘yeah right’, and punched you on the arm, that I had literally no idea you were being serious and I would’ve said yes, because dude you were really fucking hot and I just thought it was some senior-junior prank I wasn’t in… on…"

Derek is looking uncomfortable, his eyes fixed on the carpet by Stiles ratty-looking Vans, and he’s at least 80% sure he’s made a mess of this whole thing since he arrived.

"Yeah," Derek says, taking another step back, "well I don’t remember that, so—" The words are brought up short when he turns and almost walks right into his sister, nursing a cup of something that’s half-full and a completely fed up look on her face.

"Shut the fuck up, Derek," she says, rolling her eyes, "The guy’s trying to apologise for something that I distinctly remember caused you to sit out that party and go home and re-format your Myspace profie." It’s not adorable how she has to tippy-toe to look over Derek’s shoulder to see Stiles. "And you, not everyone is an inconsiderate dick who makes fun of people’s feelings. Why the fuck would he ask you out as a joke?"

"I— it was a thing, Danny was always making jokes about us going on dates… And he, too, was really hot and way out of my league and I thought Derek was trying to do the same?" He knows it’s flimsy, but honestly, the thought of eighteen year old Derek wanting to date sixteen year old him is still far-fetched through the confidence and devastating good looks Stiles developed since high school.

"Didn’t Danny take you to prom?" Derek asks, and Stiles has a retort ready, about that _not having anything to do with anything_ , before he stops.

"I thought you didn’t remember any of this?" Stiles squints, feeling suddenly bolstered by the pink tips of Derek ears, and the way Cora is looking to the ceiling for strength.

"Oh my god," she groans, before pointing a finger at her brother. "You, stop trying to play it cool. You had a thing for him and you asked me four times today if he was still friends with Scott and if Scott was coming tonight. And he—" she says, redirecting the Accusatory Finger of Doom at Stiles, "Apparently thought you were hot before the dental work and the gym membership, if Scott is to be believed, so please just make plans to get smoothies tomorrow and spend the rest of tonight making everyone uncomfortable with your awkward, nerdy flirting."

Derek’s entire cheeks are pink now. Stiles is having trouble keeping his hands by his sides. Cora’s already gone.

“ _You’re_ a nerd,” Derek grumbles to her wake, and Stiles is so charmed by the childish display that he lets out a bark of shocked laughter. Derek looks slightly horrified at being heard for a moment, before his face schools into nonchalance.

"Isaac said you TiVo’d my commercial," he says by way of segue, which is not fair because Stiles didn’t tell anyone about that and Isaac is so not allowed in their apartment anymore without an escort.

"I have photos of him in middle school where he looks like Justin Timberlake," Stiles scowls, hoping the force of his glare can be felt through a wall.

"That’s not really a threat," Derek muses, trying to follow his gaze.

"Circa early N Sync noodle hair," he explains, and. Derek’s eyebrows jump.

"So, smoothies?" Stiles asks, feeling brave at last, and shoving his hands in his back pockets. Screw it, Derek can only say no, and they’ll be even on the turning-each-other-down front.

He appears to think about it, and then says, “No smoothies. Nothing with a straw.”

Stiles frowns. “What? Why?”

"I’ve seen you with straws," he says, like that’s an explanation for anything at all. "You don’t get to use it to an unfair advantage to—"

Stiles is totally lost, and Derek’s words cut off when he seems to realise that.

"So, coffee instead?"

"Uh, sure… But why can’t we—"

"—Is that a sheep playing basketball?"

The swerve in conversation has Stiles hugging his chest, covering his hideous shirt like that’ll be enough to erase the memory of it, except wait… _What_?

"Are you trying to distract— Derek!"

He jogs down the hall after the guy, his stupid smug walk rounding the corner.

"Derek, why can’t I have straws? Derek! Derek?"


End file.
